the best place to live in London as a cyclist

[James10]

Hmmmm thanks for your responses. This is all very helpful and interesting.

We're definitely on an East End slum budget, as srw calls it. I have done some research and you can get small, grotty studios in the Camden area for around £5-600 a month. Yes, we're aspirational people.

After you're advice of Bromley/Sutton/Beckenham and Orpington I did some gumtree searching in that area and you do get quite a bit more for the price, i.e. a studio where you can fry food a sufficient distance from your bedsheets.

The good thing with central London is that if you're in a crap area, it's only a short walk or tube journey to a better one. I think if we move too far out of London and into suburbia, on our budget we could end up in a place where that crapness and proximity to crime is flattened and spread over a larger area. That said, if we're close to a tube station, it wouldn't really matter. Maybe we should stick to high streets where the transport links are good.

thanks for your help!

 

[Lee_M]

This. Where you live will be determined by the trade-off between distance to work, cost of commuting, cost of housing, desired living space and budget.

Are you on a Chelsea palace or an East End slum budget?

I can truthfully say there's no such thing as an East End slum budget, it'll still buy a mansion anywhere else!

 

[Dan B]

If you've got a bike, why do you need a tube station? For that matter, even if you don't have a bike, many areas ineligible for the Tube Tax (say, most of the LB of Hackney) are well served by bus routes

London cycling is not in any way like riding in the New Forest, but has a (figurative) cut and thrust which is enjoyable in a quite different way. I woudn't go for leisure rides on zone 1, but the commute is always interesting sometimes verging on exciting

 

[Lee_M]

Hmmmm thanks for your responses. This is all very helpful and interesting.

We're definitely on an East End slum budget, as srw calls it. I have done some research and you can get small, grotty studios in the Camden area for around £5-600 a month. Yes, we're aspirational people.

After you're advice of Bromley/Sutton/Beckenham and Orpington I did some gumtree searching in that area and you do get quite a bit more for the price, i.e. a studio where you can fry food a sufficient distance from your bedsheets.

The good thing with central London is that if you're in a crap area, it's only a short walk or tube journey to a better one. I think if we move too far out of London and into suburbia, on our budget we could end up in a place where that crapness and proximity to crime is flattened and spread over a larger area. That said, if we're close to a tube station, it wouldn't really matter. Maybe we should stick to high streets where the transport links are good.

thanks for your help!

The tube travels out a long way, so being out in the burbs is still a short trip into town but you will get a lot more for your money

 

[Roadrider48]

Just avoid Hounslow, some of the worst drivers I have ever encountered

I live in Sutton and can cycle to central London in an hour or to Richmond park in half an hour or to box hill in an hour etc...we do have more pothole than road however!

Maybe you are a stockbroker or similar and have pots of cash but have you looked at the price of property in Richmond! Where will you be working, might have some bearing on where you live

W London roads are very busy at the weekends, as are the Surrey hills, you may find cycling rather more stressful than out in the sticks

I was just about to say that about Richmond prices!

 

[Andy Hay]

Move a little bit further out from Bromley and you find Westerham and Biggin Hill - there are some great trails around there and the commute from Sevenoaks is easy (if expensive!). Alternatively, have you considered somewhere like Petersfield - an hour into Waterloo on the train and you're right on the South Downs and Queen Elizabeth Country Park. If you can work from home at least one day a week, this might be your perfect solution...